


Loving You is Complicated

by ibonekoen



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-01
Updated: 2012-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 13:20:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibonekoen/pseuds/ibonekoen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Stephanie is an FBI agent and Clint is a common criminal. What would it be like if they fell in love?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loving You is Complicated

Falling in love wasn't part of the game, especially not the game I was playing with _him_. Clint Barton — two-bit petty criminal for hire and the best damn lover I've ever had (not that I would tell him that; his ego's big enough already) — waltzed into my life two years ago, and I haven't regretted a second of it.

Sure, it's complicated — he's a criminal, I'm an FBI agent, and there's a strong possibility that I might have to arrest him at some point in the future — but there's just something about him. It's clichéd but he's gotten under my skin. This _whatever_ you want to call it between us was never supposed to be about anything other than sex, but the days when I come home and don't find him waiting for me on my couch are disappointing.

Like everything in my life, the story of how we met begins with a stakeout. A boring, uneventful and ultimately waste of my partner's and my time stakeout that went on for _hours_ without any sign of our prep. It went on so long that we ended up running out of coffee and I got the honor of fetching us more by losing a game of rock, paper, scissors. 

As luck would have it, we were parked across the street from a local diner that had seemed to be doing steady business. Clint was seated at a table on the sidewalk, talking to a redhaired woman who sat across from him. Oh, I noticed him; it was hard not to — he was leaning back in his chair, tipping it back onto the back two legs, and I still don't know how he managed to keep from falling flat on his ass. He was laughing at something the woman had said to him, and that's what caught my attention. His entire face smiled when he laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. I don't usually go for all that sappy, poetic shit, but it was, well, gorgeous.

I wasn't really looking to make a move on him though. I'd just come off a pretty bad breakup with a boyfriend of five years, so finding a replacement hadn't quite crossed my mind yet, even though it had been six months.

I guess he noticed me too, because the next thing I knew, we were standing in line, flirting and trading quips. He ended up slipping a slip of paper with his name and number scrawled across it into my back pocket, and if it had been anybody else, I would've decked him for blatantly groping my ass. I guess you could say he'd already charmed me from the start.

That's the only explanation I have for how, two days later, I ended up with my back pinned against the wall of my apartment, my legs wrapped around his waist, hanging on for dear life as he pistoned into me. I'm not the kind of girl who puts out on the first date, and I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that we didn't even make it out of the apartment to actually _go_ on the date. My only excuse is that it had been six _months_ since I'd last had sex, and he'd given me the sexiest grin when he'd shown up at my door with a bottle of bourbon. The jeans that looked like they'd been painted onto his ass didn't help matters either.

So began a torrid affair of hot, fantastic sex that culminated in me falling in love somewhere along the way. Because he started hanging out at my apartment after sex, we started to get to know each other, and I found out that we actually had a lot in common.

Then came the day when his rap sheet came across my desk, and my heart plummeted.

Oh, there had been subtle hints along the way that his occupation was less than honest, but as far as I could tell, he'd never done anything deplorable and he seemed reformed.

That didn't make seeing his rap sheet any easier.

~*~*~

"You're a criminal." They weren't the words I'd intended to say, especially since his mouth was busy pressing kisses to the soft skin on my neck.

He paused, lifting his head to meet my gaze. "Yeah, and you're a Fed. What's your point?"

I frowned and tried to roll away from him as he ducked his head back down to resume kissing me. "Wait a second, Clint, we need to talk about this."

He groaned and flopped over onto his back beside me on the bed. We'd actually made it to the bedroom; usually, our lovemaking took place on the couch or my kitchen counter or the nearest wall. "Why? What's there to talk about, Steph? You're mad because I didn't tell you?" He scrubbed his hands over his face. "You're a Fed, Steph. Gee, I can't imagine why I wouldn't want to clue you in that I'm one of the bad guys."

He sighed and then rolled back toward me, pressing kisses down my torso.

I knew what he was trying to do, but I wasn't going to let him distract him from having this conversation. "You went to jail for killing a man, Clint."

The whispered words brought his kisses to a halt, and he exhaled against my stomach. "You _really_ wanna do this now?" He rolled away to the opposite side of the bed and sat up, his back to me. "Fine. We'll do this now. Yeah, I killed a guy, when I was eighteen, and if I had to go back and do it all over again, I'd shoot the motherfucker again. I was protecting Tasha. Guy threatened to kill her, I took care of it. End of story." He grabbed his jeans off the floor where they'd been dropped earlier and jerked them on, stalking toward the door.

"Clint, wait." I winced as the door slammed behind him, and then I scrambled out of bed, grabbing a robe and throwing it on, wrapping it around myself. "Clint!"

I opened the door to see him grabbing his shirt off the couch and yanking it on, not bothering to button it. He held his shoes in his hands, and I took maybe two steps out of my bedroom before he was yanking open my apartment door and storming out into the hall.

"Dammit, Clint!" I yelled as I raced across the living room and bolted out the door, but he was already in the elevator. I caught a brief glimpse of the anger and hurt written across his face before the doors slid closed, and I sagged back against my door.

I didn't see him for a week, seven long and torturous days where I was an absolute bear to everyone around me. My partner didn't even escape my wrath.

"Okay, what happened? Did you and your boy toy have a fight?" Bucky asked in between bites of the hot dog he was consuming. I must've looked startled — I hadn't mentioned Clint to _anyone_ in the department — because he chuckled. "Oh, c'mon, don't look so surprised. You know I've got a sixth sense about when people are getting laid, and you, madam, have had that post-coital glow for _months_. Either somebody's getting some on a regular basis or you need to give me the manufacturer's name of that toy you're using because I gotta get one."

"Oh my god, _Bucky_ ," I hissed, but really, I was fighting back laughter. James "Bucky" Barnes had never learned to filter himself in the twenty-odd years that we've known each other. I never know what's going to come out of his mouth.

He just flashed me a devilish smirk. "You're not denying that you met someone though. Do I get to meet this mystery man?"

"Not if you're going to act like that." I rolled my eyes and then sighed. "It's that obvious, huh? That we had a fight?"

Bucky leveled me with a look that screamed 'DUH!' "You've been a bitch all week, Steph, way worse than when you're on the rag."

I snorted and shook my head. "Charming." Of course, I knew he was right, but I wasn't going to admit it so easily. "Come on, I haven't been _that_ bad."

He arched an eyebrow. "Really? You made Perkins _cry_ , and all she did was put powdered creamer in your coffee."

I wrinkled my nose. Okay, maybe that had been uncalled for; it had been three days and I still felt guilty about making the file clerk cry. "I don't like the powdered stuff. It has a weird aftertaste."

Bucky chuckled. "Yeah, but did you really have to insult her intelligence and insinuate that a guppy could do her job?"

I coughed, feeling my face growing red. "Okay, fine, so I've been a bitch. I just- I've never fought with this guy before, and everything was going so perfect."

Of course, that was when everything decided to turn to shit. One second, we were two off duty federal agents, enjoying a hot dog and a cold beverage in the comfort of our car; the next, we were getting a radio call that our suspect was westbound in a stolen vehicle.

Sure enough, a lime green Mustang matching the description given to us by the dispatcher blew past us, going well over the posted speed limit, and with the quick crank of the engine, we were roaring away in high pursuit.

That was where my memory of events got a little fuzzy. I remembered speeding off after the car, and I even remember pulling out my service revolver and shooting out the Mustang's passenger tires. I remembered a spectacular crash in the intersection involving the Mustang's front end and the tail end of a Mercedes SLS. I remembered the Mustang's driver getting out of the car and taking off on foot, and I remembered Bucky and me chasing after him. I even vaguely remembered the driver getting off a shot before Bucky took him down with a well aimed shot to the knee.

What I did not remember, no matter how hard I tried, was being struck by the bullet of the shot the guy managed to get off. Okay, so it was just a shallow wound and only required some stitches, but dammit, I was still off active duty for a few days until it healed, and it _hurt_ like hell.

Needless to say, I was cranky when I got home. Bucky insisted on driving me home from the hospital, and it was probably a good thing he did because I was too woozy to even think about driving, thanks to the pain medication. I had a moment of panic when he followed me into my apartment though, because there was Clint, frantically pacing my kitchen.

He froze, eyes widening, and then his expression darkened as he saw Bucky behind me. "Oh. Bad time, I guess." He ducked his head, stepping out of the kitchen and heading toward the door, but I stepped into his path.

"Bucky was just leaving. Clint, this is my partner, Bucky Barnes. Bucky, this is Clint, my-" I cut off, throwing a glance at Clint, not really sure what to call him. "My Clint."

Bucky gave me a knowing smirk and nodded. "Nice to meet you, Clint." If he recognized Clint from his rap sheet, he wasn't saying anything, for which I was grateful. "I was just dropping her off. Make sure she takes her meds, huh?"

I rolled my eyes as he handed off the bag from the pharmacy around the corner to Clint and then winked at me before heading out. I turned back to Clint, ready to apologize for Bucky, and then stopped at the stricken expression on his face, the way he was staring at the bag in his hand.

"Clint? What are you doing here?" I asked softly.

The sound of my voice seemed to startle him out of his trance, and he looked up at me, concern etched across his face. "I heard an agent got shot today. I was just making sure it wasn't you, but it was, wasn't it?" His eyes swept over me, searching for the gunshot wound, and his forehead creased as his gaze landed on my left arm and the bulky bump of the bandage under my sleeve. "Jesus Christ, Steph, who was it? I'll kill him."

I shook my head, swallowing. "No need. He's already been taken into custody. I'm fine, it's just a little wound."

He stepped closer, bridging the gap between us, and his hand settled on the back of my neck as he pulled me close, planting a kiss on my forehead. "When I heard, I got... I got scared," he mumbled against my skin. "You ever fucking die on me, Agent, and I'm gonna be pissed."

I couldn't stop the quiet chuckle that escaped me, and I slid my uninjured arm around his waist, placing my hand flat against his back and just holding him close. He shifted, moving closer and draping an arm around my shoulders, pulling me against his chest, and we just stood there for a few minutes, feeling each other's heartbeats through our shirts.

Eventually, I decided that lying down would be much better for us both and nudged him back toward the bedroom. "C'mon, Barton, it's your lucky day. You get to help me get naked, and if you're really lucky, I'll even let you cop a feel or two."

He laughed and pulled back just enough to catch my gaze, then he kissed me, just a soft, tender brush of his lips that left mine tingling. "Yes, ma'am."

We never did finish that discussion about his rap sheet, but I've learned to cope with his dark past. He even helps me out occasionally, feeding me tips about rival bad guys I'm trying to catch. He's never actually said how he feels about me but sometimes, the way he looks at me, it just feels like love.

I'm just waiting for the day when one of us slips up and says those three little words first. My money's on him.


End file.
